Half-Life 2 - Episode 2 - Unfamiliar Ceilings

[Grounder]

Teleportation and Gordon historically go together like peanut butter and earwax, so I'm not sure what they were expecting to happen here.

I don't know how well the 15 minute soft-limit is gonna do.

[WinterSweater]

The game has good pacing, so I think it will be ok

[BobisOnlyBob]

There may need to be mid-chapter breaks at some point, depending on how raocow does at raocowing his way through certain environments, but that's fine. The loading zones give pretty good indicators of where's sane to take a break if there's no new chapter header.

[raocow]

yeah like on one end, I adapt to games. Iconoclasts ended up having 30-ish minute episodes on the regular, because that's what the game commanded

on the other end, yeah, like the 'loading' points make for logical end steps I feel like, even if the chapters grow longer and I don't end on a new 'chapter' per se.

we'll adapt!

[Dark Hunter]

raocow the advocate for headcrab rights!

To comfort you, raocow, the giant cavity in the middle of the headcrab is not a result of her "de-beaking". That's just what headcrabs normally look like.

[Awoo]

raocow the advocate for headcrab rights!

To comfort you, raocow, the giant cavity in the middle of the headcrab is not a result of her "de-beaking". That's just what headcrabs normally look like.

just wait until he gets to Ravenholm >:3

[ano0maly]

It's interesting how they got this elaborate plot setup for a teleportation device in this game; I'm used to games taking warps for granted, especially in 2D games.

I'm also curious about the invisible Gordon Freedom that causes the goofy look of picked up objects just floating in the air. I'm guessing that they didn't actually implement him like the other characters with the same physics and movement, but instead made the playable character into a custom construct specifically for first-person control (like in Mirror's Edge)?

[Dark Hunter]

Remember this was one of the first FPS's that implemented an interactive environment and physics engine like this.

I imagine they wanted to cut down on resources, and not having a player model would do that, as well as greatly simplify animations.

[thatguyif]

I don't think it's necessarily a lack of player model, since I'm certain Gordon's model does exist and can be seen in multiplayer (and I think through cheats). It's more likely that, given this was still early 2000s and physical mocap wasn't the norm in 3D gaming, creating a pose manually for each type of object that the player could possibly pick up (from barrels to boxes to pieces of wood to telephone receivers), along with the throwing and putting down animations, would've taken months to do. And spending months on something that irrelevant to gameplay wasn't worth it.

Half-Life 2 did have some mocap, but it was mostly focused on facial animation. Any non-facial mocap was very limited at best. I think it's also worth noting too, judging from what I've seen in pure SFM animations, that the Source engine at that point had fairly simplistic rigging.

[Leet]

I don't think it's necessarily a lack of player model, since I'm certain Gordon's model does exist and can be seen in multiplayer (and I think through cheats).

Wrong.

[thatguyif]

That doesn't disprove what I said though. Posing that stuff was hard

[Duker]

"but instead made the playable character into a custom construct specifically for first-person control (like in Mirror's Edge)?"
That what the vast, vast, majority of first-person games does, making the player have a complete body or similar is most of the time a huge waste of time. Heck even the arms is kinda superfluous really but it's the most bang-for-buck you're gonna get in this context.

[Petzi]

Remember this was one of the first FPS's that implemented an interactive environment and physics engine like this.

Yeah, this is a significant historical note. Half-Life 2's interactive physics was an innovation at the time, while Half-Life 1 innovated by having a realistic world and story. Alyx, of course, is pioneering virtual reality technology.

Not that I'm a certified videogame history man, or anything.

[J. J. W. Mezun]

[Crow]

Pictured: Gordon Freeman

[Mata Hari]

If there were a way to make this thread skip the page after 2 and go straight to 4, I would make it happen.

[Awoo]

If there were a way to make this thread skip the page after 2 and go straight to 4, I would make it happen.

maybe @rena can make it happen?

if this were China it'd go 1, 2, 3, 5.
4 is an unlucky number there, don't see many/any 4th floors in China, kinda like how you don't see 13th floors here in the west

[Grounder]

wow this game is ultra super forgiving

[Reecer7]

in this video, raocow traverses many, many large pits

the first time raocow confronts an enemy by shooting it in this video, he lines it up horizontally and shoots before aiming up or down, and i really want to hope that's because he's relying on his experience with doomlikes and it's not just a coincidence, because that would be hilarious

just to be safe, probably should number these videos in base 3 so no pesky third numerals show up

[WinterSweater]

That first try train surfing was rad

[thatguyif]

SECRET NUMBER

That's actually an East Asia thing.

In most countries that have used or adopted hanzi script (aka, Chinese characters), the number 4 is a homophone of the word "death" or similar terms. This is most prevalent in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, with a lesser extent to Vietnamese. Chinese has this as an issue for the simple reason that, as a tonal language with a limited set of syllables, it's very easy to have syllables mean vastly different things based on the tone. Korean and Japanese, on the other hand, are mostly atonal languages, and it's more osmosis from cultural exchange with the Imperial courts. Vietnamese has two versions of the number 4, the formal "tứ" and the informal "bốn." The formal is based on the Chinese term, and is rarely used in everyday life, on the simple reason that Sino-Vietnamese was the language of the court and not the people (important to note Vietnam was under Chinese occupation for nearly 1000 years on and off from Antiquity to the late Middle Ages). Four is commonly used with the informal term "bốn" and thus is used normally. Moreover, "tứ" (the formal four) and "tử" (the formal term for death) sound more distinct from one another than in other languages.

Anyway, this is long-winded explanation to a response to someone disregarding The Meme™

So, yeah. This was brought up in the video comments, but you'll want to be on the lookout for any crates with yellow stickers on them, for those contain ammo and health with a quick whack of the crowbar. Along with scavenging corpses, this is how you survive in the game. The reason you got health after getting stuck was because there was a supply crate there (an exploding barrel destroyed the crate, but left the stuff in there intact).

Also, I recall that autosaves aren't overwritten, so you can simply load the game from an earlier vantage point if you get placed in an unwinnable situation at the checkpoint (though that requires loading from the menu).

[Chirei]

[Zummorr]

raocow acts like a small child tracing circles on the walls, or playing hopscotch with the floor tiles, while the adults talk about boring adult things. It's adorable.

"Hey Gordon." "Hello." continues carrying wooden pallet, Ignoring Barney

In hindsight, it's really trustworthy of Valve to give the player free reign while the NPCs roleplay out their scene.

[Reecer7]

raocow acts like a small child tracing circles on the walls, or playing hopscotch with the floor tiles, while the adults talk about boring adult things. It's adorable.

"Hey Gordon." "Hello." continues carrying wooden pallet, Ignoring Barney

with how much he's poised to play around, i'm definitely betting on raocow authentically discovering a certain speedrun tactic over the course of this game

[Leet]

Fun Half-Life Facts!

The fish creature in the teleport sequence is the Ichthyosaur, a recurring aquatic monster in the HL1 arc. It's another creature from Xen that scientists were bringing back to study.

The friendly aliens are Vortigaunts, who were also enemies in the HL1 games. Although at first hostile, when in Xen it is shown that they are a slave race working in the mines who do not attack under normal circumstances. As Gordon killed their master at the end of HL1, they have no reason to be hostile now.

The tongue creatures are Barnacles who are basically the same as they were in the previous games.